


Radiant, unburnt

by laughingpineapple



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games), Dark Souls I
Genre: Canon-Typical Depression, Fire, Found Family and also Plain Family, Gen, Gwyn-critical, Hurt/Comfort, Juggling both canon endings as negative outcomes, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Things were better when it was just rocks big trees and dragons but they do what they can, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 12:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20045869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: Sometimes there is kindness. Sometimes there is a story after the end. [Solaire links the fire because of course he does; Siegmeyer doesn't dive into the chaos eaters' pool and consequently Sieglinde doesn't find him at Ash Lake. Kaathe wins the lottery or something, or thinks he did]





	Radiant, unburnt

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to assign thematic values to the game's recurring symbols and plotting my way from there to try and give my three faves some sort of uplifting ending. Which is not TOO hard for the onions, all things considered, but Solaire is a Greek tragedy wrapped in cosmic indifference and it takes some work and at least one artistic license to drag him anywhere. Oh the joys of hand-picking everyone's best ending and still needing thousands of words of fix-it #littledarksoulsthings  
Many thanks to AltairAttorney for getting me into this wonderful game and for cheering for this fic!

1.

Solaire burns. 

The dying bonfire welcomes him. Flames lap at his arm and find rich and eager fuel, seeping through his veins, rushing with his blood. They take him. They make him whole. This knight's long quest has come to an end and he can rest, lulled by a blazing embrace.

Fire bursts like gunpowder in the darker corners of Solaire's soul, engorged by the memory of a doubt on the shore of a shadowed lake, eating half-forgotten street corners of a lonely youth in Astora until all that remains is blinding, scorching light. All his life, he had hidden those thoughts deep down, fearing that they would make him unfit to stand before the sun. If only he had known that they burn the brightest.

The memory of harsh, deep-cutting contempt from a fellow knight leaves him in dirty beads of sweat after years of hurting like a sore, driven off by the absolute certainty of the First Flame that is taking root within him. He did not mean to let go of the melancholy of the end of an old love, one last afternoon spent together under the colonnades as shadows claimed the street and a lone statue stood as their sole witness. Time had been kind to that memory, turning it bittersweet, and he was fond of it. But there is just fire now where that memory had been. First Flame eternal. 

His sun! It burns over the statue and eats at the colonnades, holding Solaire against them as his lover would, it floods the streets until the shadows are defeated and the sky turns green and then a boiling white. All in all, this, too, is a better memory now. Warmer.

His sun! An existence as scorching and glorious as the tales foretold, tales half-heard in childhood and repeated in whispers to himself, nurturing them, changing them until they were his own and his own only, and through many hardships he kept doubt at bay, and in the end, in this glorious end, they were true.

His sun! Solaire finds a prayer within him but finds no-one to offer it to but himself, a fact which gives him pause. He shall be father to himself if nobody else will. There was no light to guide him and so he made his own. Reverent son of his own melting grace, he lets the flames take this regret, too, and burn it to ashes.

Light spreads to distant lands. He is Solaire of Astora and he is the light and the sun lording over the world's skies, he is one and many, extending each sun ray with shivering anticipation as a personal blessing to the soil and the people below. Soon the firmament calls for him to abandon his mortal body and transcend to the celestial realms above. He is to shed the duality of man and star, of flame in the kiln and flame in the sky, he is to leave an empty husk of cinders and cross the horizons with his full presence as the last burning god. Soon, he will. Wearing down his last tethers may take years in the time of mortals, but the Flame is cleansing him of such earthly concerns. Soon in the time of gods, he shall be fully light, and fire, and free.

From deep within the kiln, bursting within the confines of the flesh, Solaire walks through the opening and stands on the edge of the chasm, looking up at the bright skies above. Bright skies!

He does not see the bumbling figure crossing the bridge to the kiln.

  
  


2.

With his ears full of raging starlight, Solaire does not hear the huffs and mumbles echoing from within the full suit of armor that's hurrying his way. 

This knight is bothered by water. Or rather by his helmet, he is quick to add, correcting himself, as the gentle curves of Catarina's steel collect his plight and refract it over and over in a woeful echo. His helmet cannot carry enough water because of those pesky holes, it would have the capacity but it's also got all the holes and that's the pickle. That's the real pickle. To make it this far in his lonesome quest and be presented with a trial worthy of a song, and be doomed to fail because of holes! Yes indeed, too late and full of holes! 

Humming to himself, the dejected knight shakes his head and taps into some deep pocket of resolve. His helmet's no bucket but he may yet not be too late.

"Oh, if there is no other way," he says, and his armor gives his voice a reverberation like a death knell. The part of Solaire who still remembers what it is like to strive toward an impossible goal can spare some empathy for such doomed determination, whatever it may be. He feels the bear grip of a Catarina knight surround him and wonders if this man, too, yearned for the scorching allure of the sun, if perchance he is sad because Solaire was first to reach the Flame. 

"Fear not, brave knight!" he wishes he could say, as chivalry and generosity are not lost to him, but finds that his mouth is a molten furnace. So he shares his warmth, his flames, with the same simple kindness with which he used to share food or estus with a fellow traveler. It is such a small gesture. Such a meager offer.

This other knight screams in pain and doesn't let go. Holding Solaire tight, he charges forward with all his strength. Solaire feels the ground give underneath his feet and they fall, entangled, like a burning meteor. 

The chasm seems to go on forever.

  
  


3.

The fall almost kills them both.

Breathing feels like swallowing ashes. After a still and painful rest which goes on like a fitful dream, Siegmeyer of Catarina opens his eyes to find that he is still burning. So is the knight of Astora he saw succumbing to the fire and whom he valiantly attempted to put out best as he could. Such is life. And unlife, as well. Harsh and unforgiving! It would have been easier if he had had a bucket.

Still, his brash attempt almost succeeded. They are subdued like embers now, down there in the depths under the kiln, and only timid flames dance atop his armor, scalding him underneath. He flexes his fingers, as if the rest of him were far too broken to answer to his commands. One muscle at a time, he regains command of his arm and grips the estus flask hanging on his hip, unfastening it, dragging it on the ground until it's close enough to risk lifting it and taking a sip.

The golden liquid twirls and shimmers against the fire. A drop fallen on Siegmeyer's coal-red cheek bursts into flame. Estus warms him well past the point of comfort now, fire calling to fire, boiling in his throat, but it still heals his wounds, as it used to, and lets him sit upright to drink more, and cough when the air inside his lungs grows too hot. He gives a disappointed grunt when he reaches half of his flask and his bones are still aching. The remaining estus is not for him: his fellow knight needs the other half to be healed of graver injuries than his own, and Siegmeyer of Catarina shall not let a companion suffer untended to.

Such courtesy he would extend to any friendly stranger and more so to this man, whose identity he glimpsed among the flames and can ascertain now. Solaire of Astora, knight of sunlight, is a hero, a champion and, in the way Lordran braids together the fates of distant men, a friend. At least, Siegmeyer humbly dared to think of him so.

He is unfastening Solaire's helmet, watching glowing stripes of hot coal cross his fair features, when the gravity of the situation creeps upon him. It is a slow realization that sneaks behind his thoughts as Siegmeyer is humming in satisfaction at a job well done, for it was a daring rescue and he has been rather resourceful, if he dare say so himself. But tending to Solaire's limp body makes him think good and hard about the radiance of the man as he first met him, the calm ambition he exuded, his one fixed goal which he oh-so-fondly talked about.

"It's growing cold…" Solaire whispers, distant, as if through a feverish illness, and Siegmeyer feels his heart drop to the bottom of his stomach. He hadn't thought about it, no sir! Somehow, at the end of all paths, Solaire had become the grossly incandescent mass he always aspired to and clumsy Siegmeyer chanced upon it and ruined it all, and thought himself a hero for it, too! If he were to come back to his senses now, Solaire would have all the reasons to challenge this poor knight to an easy duel to avenge the defacing of his lifelong dream, and to hold onto the feeble coals that still burn within them both, which may still be enough to start a new fire. 

And yet, and yet. These coals hurt very much indeed, his skin is black and red too, although his injuries are less severe than his companion's. It is not at all right in Siegmeyer's head, now that he has seen it with his own eyes, that one's lifelong dream would be to set oneself on fire. His fine daughter has it on good authority that his head is full of nothing but potatoes and whatever thought may germinate in there should not be heeded, but looking at the man now, lying still and badly breathing, Siegmeyer refuses to accept that he may have ruined him. People weren't meant to be on their own like that, his ma used to say. Especially not while burning.

It is time for Siegmeyer to make another choice. This one’s premeditated: failure, should that be the outcome, will fall on his conscience in full with no excuses. Setting the estus flask aside, he leaves Solaire unconscious and close to death. He holds him close, muttering apologies to each pained whimper.

The ash of centuries, raised by their impact, falls back down on them like snow. They lie on the ground, two dying embers in the dark.

Eventually, the ash suffocates their flames.

  
  


4.

Half a flask's worth of estus could be all the light left in the world. When Siegmeyer is done tending to the worst of Solaire's injuries, there's barely dregs left, a glow fainter than the light of a single candle.

The rest is flowing through Solaire's veins. He can feel each droplet so clearly now, by contrast if nothing else. In the absence of the all-encompassing First Flame, the familiar tepid blush of estus worming itself under his skin has become ever so vivid, ever so cherished. His heart aches keenly, but that is not the sort of pain the elixir will mend. The last sip that was administered to him is pooling in his chest, so close to giving him some measure of relief, but it dastardly flows to some broken bone instead, bursts in blessed heat and dies out, leaving Solaire alone again.

He is empty. Emptied. His body is a cavern and the shadows rush back to fill his void. He fought for so long to keep them at bay.

Solaire opens his eyes in near-total darkness. With infinite effort, he raises an arm and struggles to make out the silhouette of his hand. Lowering it with a pained whimper, he means to rest it on the comforting steel of his helmet but finds his bare face instead. It is only fair: having lost every right to call himself a warrior of sunlight, his uniform, too, is gone. Under his fingers, he finds that wide strips of skin are burnt. These markings feel old like his memories of the Flame already feel old and, unlike those, do not hurt. Incomplete healing, Solaire wonders, or brands too deep to ever be erased. He hopes for the latter.

Rolling on his side, he sees the polished steel of Catarina armor reflect the waning estus. He squints. He knows this man: Siegmeyer of Catarina, good-hearted companion and comrade in arms. Sitting next to Solaire, the knight is looking down at him with the look of a concerned father, jovial face marred by burnings similar to his own. That mustache won't ever look right anymore. Pity that. Nostalgia takes hold of him again. It has its advantages, nostalgia: it is a simple, all-encompassing, noble feeling that can smother like a blanket the more unsavory thoughts hiding in ambush in the corners of Solaire's mind, thoughts he is not ready to face. For one: the Flame is gone, the world is dark. Another, more hideous: Gwyn is dead and he was never a father to mankind. Not to him, at least. Sunlight never watched over him. 

"What... happened?"

"Oh-hoh! You speak again. I saved you. Didn't I?"

"You brought me back. It is so cold? We are alive," says Solaire, still struggling to make sense of the recent turns of events. "Or, as much as we were before."

Siegmeyer nods.

"Why?"

It is not a good question to ask as an undead. Slippery slope.

  
  


5.

Siegmeyer has no answer to the question of why they are still there after the end of everything. Why, he could barely tell where they are, and he is not sure he would know how to get back. All he can offer is a friendly smile. Solaire considers it, its weight in the grand scheme of things, but turns the other way and stares into the darkness with a hollow glimpse in his eyes. The base of tall, sharp cliffs looms beyond his sight. The kiln is so far away, and cold.

"It is... gone. I could not keep it."

It hurts Siegmeyer to see the champion of sunlight suffer. He can see him parse the reality of their situation one detail at a time, each realization cutting him deeper, and Solaire was never meant for this. For helplessness. The man was born to brandish the shining shield of his beliefs and protect the weak, to be bright and wonderful, and in thinking this it occurs to Siegmeyer that he does, in truth, have a few answers for some of the recent developments. He mutters them to himself first, more grumbling than distinct words, to feel the words out in the wild, because he knows he cannot afford to get it wrong. Then he goes back to the beginning. Fills this space between them with his voice, if light cannot do it anymore. 

Or can it? Siegmeyer doesn't know what it is that is gone. 

The heart of the matter, he says in his singsong voice full of stops and repetitions, is that Solaire was always, you could say, a beacon. It is not a matter of opinions, no, this one is a hard fact. He is no good at telling stories, and he apologizes for making an interruption already, coupling it with an awkward laughter that bounces all wrong in the cocooned emptiness of the chasm. But he wants to say that even as he is now, curled up and crying, indeed, he still looks like a lord among men, good and honorable. And Siegmeyer could not stand to see him die in the fire and, mh, that is the whole story. He could not stand to see him die in the fire. Siegmeyer did not know what that powerful flame was, as he had gotten rather lost, very lost, on his way to a worthy challenge. But, and he says this with no shame, even if he had known, and had realized that the situation fell under the code's prohibition to interfere uninvited in another's quest, it is this knight's sincere opinion that Solaire's life is worth more than a quest or, indeed, more than the entire code all put together. So, yes, Siegmeyer does not regret his action, on the contrary. He is rather proud of it.

"You cannot understand," says Solaire, and draws his breath as if to speak further but nothing comes of it. He stays still, tense, feeling the weight of the Darksign on his skin. Something else within him slips further into despair. Pebbles in the cavern's depths. Soon there will be nothing left.

"Mmmmh. Some things I think I do."

Curse of the undead, they all know how this goes. Siegmeyer's own Darksign is a constant reminder of the frailty of this second chance he has been given. He kneels closer to his fellow knight and lays a hand on his shoulder, combing through the patch of mossy fleece that crowns his tabard, sharing with a real, physical connection all the simple affection that he has no words for. All the fear that he doesn't want to find the words for, too, because he can feel that his companion has one foot into the abyss, and if Siegmeyer saved him from the fire only to lose him now, what does this make him? A good for nothing loser who'd put his family to shame, is what. His heart is empty and brittle after all his pointless travels, he couldn't take one more failure. Not that he would have to worry about his own hollowing - Solaire of Astora was always ten times the warrior he was. Should the last of his humanity slip away from him, Siegmeyer would be dead before he could reach for his sword.

Solaire curls up further, but doesn't shy away from this moment. Slowly, he accepts that at least, he is not alone. He reaches for Siegmeyer's hand as the other man reminds him of the battles they fought side by side in Anor Londo, down the Giants' tomb, in Darkroot, how the full moon lording over the forest was nothing compared to the light of Solaire's laughter, which is a silly thing to say but being silly makes it no less true (it is, at most, a little exaggerated, but the man needs to hear it. It serves a good cause).

Night passes, followed by a longer night.

  
  


6.

Siegmeyer stands guard over his ailing friend, which is to say he dozes off and dreams. In the dream, a minstrel is composing a ballad about his heroics, but the room is dark and he cannot tune his lute. He excuses himself and goes outside; Siegmeyer follows him, eager to hear how his people will remember him. It is dark outside, and the minstrel cannot tune his lute. Siegmeyer bids him goodbye. He knows the way home, even in the dark, and will keep himself company with a little wordless tune.

The chasm welcomes him back with heavy ash and cold, jagged rocks. As the skies remain pitch dark, a deeper fear takes hold of him, beyond those born of the simple risk of losing himself and a good man by his side. What happened to the pale sun, what have they done? What has he done? The fear freezes his breath and fills the air like ghosts, waiting. Waiting for this suspended moment to end and for his failure to be confirmed.

One ghost, at last, comes for him. A faint, spectral light has appeared atop the crags and is making its way to the bottom. The apparition takes the shape of a knight of Catarina, the summation of so many of Siegmeyer's dreams and failures. It is getting closer; Siegmeyer feels that a reckoning is near. He strengthens his grip on Solaire's hand, holding onto the last belief he has left, that all his shortcomings will not have been for naught if only the knight of Astora can find himself again. Solaire shivers and squeezes back. He is lost in a dark maze within himself, caves under caves, and cannot see a way out, but if a friend needs support, support he shall have.

The ghost reaches the ground; it tugs at the rope it used for the descent and, having ascertained that it still holds, leaves it hanging on the rocks and strides toward them at a resolute pace. From up close, the small lantern it is carrying blinds them. Eventually, Siegmeyer raises his head, ready to face judgement, and stares at his reckoning, this mirror image of himself. 

He notices that the apparition is not carrying his faithful zweihänder, but rather a lighter claymore.

"Sieglinde?" he shouts. The chasm takes his voice and multiplies it in an astonished chorus.

"Father!" their visitor calls back with a trill of pure joy. 

Father and daughter linger in their embrace, feeling each other's warmth through the layers of steel. Siegmeyer laughs first, relieved, embarrassed, hysterical at once. Sieglinde joins in and the union of their voices becomes a practiced concerted effort to find strength in dark places. This place is very dark and they find much strength in each other.

"You are not hollowed!" she says, eventually. "Burnt. But not hollowed."

"Yes. Yes, I am not, so far. Dear Sieglinde! Ah, but it is not only I who risk the final fate of the Undead, and I am afraid my companion's fever hasn't broken yet, so to speak…"

"Ser knight of Astora!"

Sieglinde holds many fond memories of her doleful journey. Chiefly among them, the day she met a fellow traveller praising the sun in front of the Firelink shrine and struck with him a fast friendship. They spoke of trees. Sieglinde had gathered strong opinions during her travels about trees in orchards and the shapes of their growth; Solaire had listened with polite interest and offered an old saying they had in Astora about branches and roots. As they exchanged these thoughts, their eyes were drawn to the darkened tops of the primeval trees that rose from the poisoned soil of Blighttown and they felt so very small. They agreed that it was a good feeling, to feel small compared to a tree.

She had spoken of her encounter with the kind sun knight to many others, as a way of reminding herself and her companions that kindness still exists in Lordran, and was always delighted when they had tales of their own of good ser Solaire who sought his own sun.

So she tells him. She tells him all those stories and the fond smiles with which they were shared. She sits beside him, like her father, shares her biscuits with them, and reminds him of his warmth. Stay with us, please?, she asks. You have brightened so many and you are not alone.

  
  


7.

Sieglinde wakes from a long nap. She looks for her armor first, finding it neatly laid next to her like she had left it before falling asleep. Then she looks for her father and their friend and finds them, too, lying in their place as if the past hours had not passed at all. Lordran has not taken them from her again (Sieglinde hopes this place does not mind that she calls it Lordran, too - all these magical lands of legend where realities’ thresholds waver feel the same to her). She remembers, now, that in her sleep she heard Solaire cry, asking to get back something that had been taken from him. Her father insisted that he did not need it. Sieglinde knew her father to have many flaws, but stinginess was not of them: if the good knight would have been better off with that thing he desired, Siegmeyer would have crossed a continent to get it back for him. She felt inclined to trust her father's judgement in the matter implicitly and went back to sleep. So did Solaire, it seems, as he is resting now without showing signs of distress. It sounded important, though.

Painted in feeble yellows by the light of her lantern, which they placed on the ground in lieu of a bonfire, Siegmeyer sits still, staring into nothingness. Sieglinde curls up to him like she used to do as a child.

"Are you not tired, father?"

"Oh! The dead do not sleep, Sieglinde, dearest. And so the undead remain awake. Such is our fate!"

His little lie is weak and bare when he knows that his daughter must remember him falling asleep on his feet on the first day after his death, before he left in search of adventure. But even if he wanted to speak out, he would have no words for the void left by the touch of the First Flame. He only briefly brushed against it and barely felt any different at first - more roasted, at most - but the more time passes, the more the memory of it keeps burning inside him. It is hard to let go. Maybe he shouldn't? The memory of the flame is all that is left now.

Sieglinde nods and does not question him. They both know that there have been other lies. Siegmeyer's motives were never bad - they all just hurt in the end all the same. 

"Where to now?" she asks eventually. She sounds wary, or just tired.

"What was that? What do you mean?"

"I assumed, father, that you would leave again."

"Ah. Yes." Siegmeyer taps his nose. "The glorious quests and knightly feats, mh?"

"As you used to say, father, with a distant fire in your eyes."

"Mh, so much for that!" He laughs - all fire is gone now. But he realizes as he hears himself give into the easy irony that in spite of it, he does not feel defeated. It is a novel feeling for the joke among the Knights of Catarina. Siegmeyer has carried his shame through many distant lands and with each failure he has known that he would have to achieve more greatness to even it out. In the end, in all his journeys, he has been of help once, here, at the end of all roads. It feels enough.

"Oh, there is one duty left for me," he says. "I have heard of a great knight, a valiant traveller from my homeland. I would like, yes, I would very much like to pledge my services to her… if she will accept them. Stay by her side, until the day when she will have grown tired of her silly old father. What say you?"

Sieglinde laughs, nervous and incredulous at first, then still finds a chuckle in her as she wipes a tear from her eye. She hugs her father and holds him close. She has missed him. She has missed him so much.

"Lordran has been generous in allowing me to witness such magnificent affection," says Solaire, groggily rising to sit cross-legged once the brunt of the emotion has passed and father and daughter are enjoying each other's company in silence. "Dear me. You, Siegmeyer of Catarina, have been most generous in allowing me to be here at all. The two of you are resplendent."

He finds himself moved to the core by this simple moment, finding at the bottom of it a shard of something bigger that he cannot define. Solaire cannot describe the complex alchemy of the dark soul within him and of the remote, inhuman flame that touched him. He never will be able to. What he knows is that he is still emptied, still dark and echoing inside, and this love resonates ever so more vividly. There is nothing divine in the two people sitting in front of him - they are human and transcendent. A different fire is sparked somewhere in the darkness. It will not burn him. It will not consume him and leave a hollowed husk of him.

"I wouldn't know about Lordran," says Sieglinde. "It is not known for its generosity. I fear that what little was there, we may have milked it dry. We cannot rely on luck."

Sieglinde and Siegmeyer come sit by Solaire's side and take his hands. When their worlds will be once again torn apart - and, mark her words, it will be soon, for the world is not fair and this place least of all - what will be of him? Will he find his path? Will he walk with his head held high again?

"Ah. Well." Solaire cannot see what charred rags are left of the sun he once painted on his chest, but he knows that it is his sun, and it is smiling at him. "As I understand it, there really is only one path for me. I shall be luminous and I shall light the way."

  
  


8.

Solaire climbs the rope that Sieglinde secured on the cliffs. It is a pained ascension, hoisting himself up with tired muscle after tired muscle. The distant summit is lost in darkness and feels like another lifetime, a world apart from what they shared down the chasm. Every now and then, he looks down at his companions, remembering Sieglinde's words: what little compassion this land has, they are draining it to its last drop. They wave at him, lit by their feeble lantern. He waves back. They know they can make it a little further up.

When he makes it to the ledge of the kiln again, he takes a moment to feel the ground under his feet and turns back to help them across the last stretch, but there is only darkness and silence. The two knights have disappeared like ghosts, torn from his world. Solaire reaches for his pouch and finds the comforting shape of a sunlight medal in his hand, only slightly melted. He regrets not having given it to them earlier and throws it in the chasm as a goodbye, wishing them well, wherever they are.

All is still. The knights that guarded this place are gone, turned to ashes along with their retainer or freed from their oath, or the two things are one and the same for old undeads. Solaire remembers that he knew them, in that brief eternal moment of communion with Gwyn's legacy. He knew their names, he knew every chip and nail of their armors as the Flame had engulfed them in a distant past. But that memory has faded fast in the darkness, unsustainable for a mere human. Siegmeyer's actions took it from him.

Even if he could choose, he admits to himself with uncomfortable honesty, he would rather lose that and keep the memories the Catarina knights had gifted him. The Flame would have taken Siegmeyer's warmth in an instant and replaced it with something absolute and distant.

The choice was never up to him, anyway, he repeats to himself with more comfort, and less honesty.

Blinded by the darkness, treacherous terrain forcing him to drop on his hands and knees, Solaire makes it back to the threshold of this place. Beyond it, Lordran awaits him. His world awaits him, changed by what he did and by what was done to him. Relegating the thought to the furthest recess of his mind has served him well up to this point, but history shall judge him soon.

He takes a step forward.

In the chamber of the Lordvessel, the primordial serpent waits for him, bright torches on the wall drawing an unreadable expression on his inhuman face. The serpent rises higher from the depths below and coils around Solaire, stopping him in his tracks. As Solaire struggles to meet the fixed gaze of the beast, another serpent rises from the darkness, as alien and imposing as the first, and joins him, trapping Solaire in a double spiral. They stare down at him, indignant, perhaps, or disappointed, or such are the feelings Solaire ascribes to history as he steps on its scales and awaits a verdict.

Solaire stands his ground: let judgement come and define him. Their slithering coils part and join and part again, leaving a row of small gaps. From these openings, he glimpses at eight more serpents staring at him from two rows along the sides of the corridor, waiting, passing their silent sentences.

"Fool," says one of the two creatures towering over him.

"You sorry fool," echoes the other. They speak in the same voice, with the same coldness, and go back to gritting their monstrous bared teeth.

"You betrayed Lord Gwyn," says the first one. "I cast the hopes of centuries on your shoulders and you shrug them off so? Heretic. Stain upon your kind. You betrayed the sun."

It would be easy, and pointless, to explain that the choice was not his, not anyone's really, as the one who plunged the world into darkness had not assessed the weight of his actions and only acted out of kindness. It would be easy on the conscience, more so than on the tongue, but the serpent's words cut deep through flimsy excuses and Solaire knows that he did betray history. When they fell, he did not fight back. He was fluttering in and out of consciousness, but some part of him knew that a coal still glowed within him and he… he let it go out as Siegmeyer held him and whispered simple comforts to his ears. He had a choice and he chose to cling to the knight, letting go instead of fighting. Through the pain and the fever, it felt right. When did a part of him get a taste of divinity and choose to walk back, he wonders. Was it when, having looked up at Gwyn as a father for his entire life, whose love he would have to prove himself worthy of, he had to suffer barrage after barrage of soulless blows to get a desperate chance to get close to him and pierce a blade through his chest? When, in keeping the whole world alight and warm, he found out how lonely it was?

"...Gwyn betrayed  _ me _ ," he says eventually, keeping his eyes to the ground and his hand on the hilt of his longsword. In time he will bear this answer like a warrior bears a scar, but it is all too fresh now, all still settling.

The second serpent coils around him. He hisses through his teeth and shakes his head in a way that feels like laughter. Satisfied, but derisive. Unkind. 

"Very well. What do you know of what you have done, human? I can tell we have never met - I would remember your hideous insignia, relic of a dying age. Enough of these false symbols! Take them off, and with that pride embrace your destiny as the Dark Lord who unshackled humanity from Gwyn's yoke!"

"I cannot deny that a new age has come," says Solaire, clutching the remains of the sun on his chest. "But not by my choice. If this darkness is not only the way the world is, but the way the world should be…" he pauses, losing the momentum of his own words. They leave the foul taste of blasphemy in his mouth, but also carry the weight of some truth. A full truth or a half truth, he cannot say. "...so be it. I won't pretend to understand it. My fate, however, is to shine."

"Ahh. Bold words, said much too late," says a serpent. The other mutters something in its wake - bold words, for different reasons. Their speeches rise and fall, lead and counter-melody eating each other's tail. Solaire brought this fate upon them - the fate is accursed, or Solaire is, there is a difference. The last bastion of divine enlightenment has fallen, and "enlightenment" gets cracked open to draw upon the full spectrum of its meanings. The dark soul shall spread, until… both serpents have their say upon the matter, which is opposite and the same at once, but Solaire isn't listening: he is thinking of caves and emptied spaces, and of small flames that spark within.

"I shall be a light in that darkness."

They laugh at him for clinging to the light still, as a sweetness now far gone or as a hideous lie, one he tore apart, and from that breach his kind shall swarm the land. The dark soul, they say, is his origin and his truth, and he shall come to accept his role.

"You speak of lies," Solaire says, again with great simplicity. "And yet what you ask of me is to become a dark lord. I cannot think of a greater lie than claiming such a role for myself! Move, if you have nothing more to say."

"You fool."

"You sorry fool."

Solaire unsheathes his sword and waits. As he gets ready to strike a warning blow at the gray flesh surrounding him, they retreat and disappear into the abyss below, followed by their silent brethren.

Alone in the chamber, Solaire kneels in front of the darkened Lordvessel, meditating upon its emptiness. 

To his surprise, something within the ancient artifact still responds to him and he conjures the image of the cool grass hillsides of the Firelink shrine. He puts a shaky hand forward and disappears.

  
  


9.

For Sieglinde and Siegmeyer, the world changes as they cross the thin bridges that cross the chasm to the kiln. One world or the other has never made much of a difference in Lordran: its travellers know to keep their eyes peeled on the dangers ahead and any variation, even when one's journey steps far into the past or is summoned to a distant future, will still be Lordran in the end. Not today. Their time with Solaire vanishes like a distant dream as they blink and open their eyes to a world bathed in blinding light. There are fresh traces on the ground of a massive burst that must have engulfed the whole basin before retreating to the confines of the kiln; shielding their eyes, they can see a human figure still burning at the center of it all, wearing a familiar mismatched suit of armor. They both whisper the same name in reverent horror, a name who used to belong to a savior and a friend. A sacrifice now. Lost to the fire. So far gone, too far gone, surrounded by taller, brighter flames than Solaire had been, but who can be sure unless one tries, and who can call oneself a true knight unless one is sure to have done everything in one's power to help those in need.

Siegmeyer clenches his fist. He takes a deep breath, stands very still on his feet, snaps his fingers open again and takes his daughter's hand. 

This worked last time. In this harsh and unforgiving world, Siegmeyer can claim one good deed to his name. This nearly killed him last time. Leaving Sieglinde alone again could be the act of a good knight, but it would not be that of a good man, and Siegmeyer, at peace with himself, turns his back to the flame.

They leave.

  
  
  
  


Solaire closes his eyes, assaulted by daylight. 

If any gods are left to watch over the world of mortals, if they care at all for humanity's' toils, and he doubts it on both counts, they are mocking him. Firelink shines with the fresh intensity of a spring day of old, sun beaming full and high in the middle of a blue sky. This is not his world. Solaire takes off his helmet to feel its rays on his face; when he discards his chainmail as well and feels the sun's full embrace, he falls to his knees and freely cries all the tears he has left.

Night has fallen, star-woven, vibrant and alive, when Solaire, still lying on the warm ground, hears footsteps nearby and the gentle humming chitchat of his Catarinian friends. He jumps up and strides toward them. Calls for them. Holds them in a strong embrace that never wants to let go.

Their paths are braided together again, if only for a short time. A small kindness.

As Siegmeyer cooks a frugal dinner, Sieglinde and Solaire stare together at the bright night sky. The beauty of their presence is real. Three people existing in the same place at the same time, reaching out to each other. For a while, it fends off the knowledge that the world around them plunged back into the old lie and paid a high price for it. They thank Siegmeyer for the food - the undead have no need for it, but can still taste, and it has been too long since Solaire's last meal. Sieglinde says she can be hungry for the three of them. They laugh.

  
  
  
  


In the end they leave together the way Sieglinde came, crossing the mountains, keeping the bright sun to their left in the mornings and to their right in the afternoons. They share time, food, stories. They paint images of the old towers of Astora looking over cobbled streets, of the salt mines of South Catarina with their deep canyons and add a detailed detour about all the uses of salt in roasting meat. As a heavy summer rain forces them to a prolonged stop inside a shallow cave and Sieglinde perseveres in a valiant, doomed attempt to brew some alcohol, Solaire makes a solemn promise to try their homeland's banquets at least once (undead hunts notwithstanding, but he figures that his world may have more pressing concerns in the immediate future). He shall travel, he tells them. Search for his truths, share his tales, give guidance to a new world. Find others who may be able and willing to spark new lights to dot the darkness. He will rise as a sun and people will follow, they tell him. 

Any moment could mark the last step they take together: the farther they leave the mighty walls of Anor Londo behind their backs, the closer they come to that invisible threshold where Lordran's magic will fade and their roads will part for the last time. They share one promise: in three months’ time, they will spend a night in a certain town near the Catarinian border - famous for its dark grapes, hard to miss - and sit by the fountain that adorns the main square. They will not meet: the barriers between worlds cannot be taken down with swords and shields, and they are leaving all miracles behind. But they will know that their companions will be there by their side, shining in the darkness.

  
  



End file.
